MARTINEZ — A debate that divided the community over whether a golf course equates to open space, and whether the owner of a failing business should have the right to sell its land to a homebuilder, apparently will be settled by voters next year.

The decision to place the referendum on the November 2016 ballot came amid a testy City Council meeting Wednesday night that featured accusations of corruption and deception regarding a proposed 99-house development at what is now Pine Meadow Golf Course and the resulting petition drive to stop it.

Caught in the middle is the family that has owned the land for over 100 years, and may close the golf course within weeks.

Though the open-space advocates clearly got what they wanted Wednesday, supporters of the golf course owners and the proposed housing, including City Councilwoman AnaMarie Avila Farias, said they are confident voters will affirm the council’s January decision to change the land’s zoning to allow for houses at the golf course.

“It’s really unfortunate we have had to take it to this level,” she said shortly before the council voted 4-0 to place a referendum on the November 2016 ballot.

The council had voted in January to make a change in the city’s general plan to allow the 25.9-acre Pine Meadow land to be rezoned from open space and recreation uses to residential use. That would have paved the way for the Coward family, the longtime owner of that land north of Center Avenue and west of Vine Hill Road, to sell it for construction by DeNova Homes.

The referendum issue was forced by Friends of Pine Meadow, who after the council’s January vote started a petition drive to require either that the City Council rescind its general plan amendment enabling the zoning change, or put the zoning/housing issue to a public vote. More than 2,800 valid signatures were gathered, far more than needed to force a council decision.

The council also could have called for a special election, which would have taken place in mid-June or later. But at an estimated cost of more than $64,000, that idea was rejected.

Wednesday night’s meeting grew heated at times, and Vice Mayor Mark Ross had to make several appeals for public commenters to keep remarks from getting personal.

Supporters of Friends of Pine Meadow contended that the course is open space that must be preserved. Some took council members to task for accepting money from developers and then supporting such a housing project, with at least two of them calling it “corruption.”

“We want a solution that’s palatable for an entire community, not just a select few,” said resident Heather Ramamurthy, an opponent of the housing project who likened Martinez to Los Altos Hills and Sausalito for its natural beauty. “Don’t squander it.”

Others said the Friends of Pine Meadow group was deceptive in that its very name suggests it supports Pine Meadow’s longtime owners, and by extension, the new houses. Some in the audience called the referendum petition gatherers “liars” and said many who signed did so thinking they were supporting the Coward family.

“They’re going through hell out there,” resident Rich Verrilli said of the family. “I hope the council has some backbone on this.”

Tim Platt, a lead organizer of the petition drive, said accusations of misrepresentation “can certainly cut both ways” but that the large number of signatures proves a key point.

“It’s very clear the people of Martinez think open space incredibly important,” he said.

Members of Friends of Pine Meadow have suggested the golf course could become a park. But Ross reiterated Wednesday night that the city does not have the money to turn that property into a park, and that any park there would have to be paid for by the community.

Christine Coward Dean, the golf course’s owner, told the council something else is important, too — property rights. She said she resents the idea of not being able to do what she wants with her own land, especially after four years and 30 community meetings about the golf course’s fate, with no such “Friends”-type opposition surfacing. She also doesn’t consider the golf course “open space.”

Dean said there is no way the money-losing golf course can continue to operate for long, much less until the November 2016 election. She said it will likely close, perhaps as soon as the end of March. She said her family is investigating other uses for the land in the meantime, perhaps boat or RV storage.

“And I guess I’ll be working on an 18-month education campaign about Pine Meadow” ahead of an election, she said.